Thorns
by Princess Gillybean
Summary: She’d yelled all sorts of things at people over the years, some horrible, some not so much. Some she had meant and some she hadn’t. Every now and then something would stick. She could remember when she’d started thinking of people as thorns..." NextGen.


**Thorns**

_Dedicated to Hondagirl, for being my nextgen friend and shaking my firm belief in the evilness of Rose/Scorpius._

* * *

She'd yelled all sorts of things at people over the years, some horrible, some not so much. Some she had meant and some she hadn't. Every now and then something would stick.

She could remember when she'd started thinking of people as thorns, at the tender age of 9. She'd been watching an old muggle movie from which she learned the expression. The next time James had pranked her she had cried out, rather dramatically, "You are the thorn in my side." He'd stared at her for a few moments and then asked curiously, "So are you the Rose?" she'd been quite struck with the idea: her, the Rose, standing tall, each of her cousins a thorn on the stem. Each one an individual thorn though each one was loved dearly.

Hugo annoyed her no end when they were younger. He was always following her round and asking her questions he refused to accept the answer to. He would take her dolls captive and bury them in the garden or give them to Crookshanks to play with. He was a lot like their father and she, their mother. They were in many ways total opposites and fought like cats and dogs over the smallest thing. When he came to Hogwarts, was sorted into Gryffindor and they saw each other less things were better. They were to busy catching up to argue as much, though when they did it was just as fierce and explosive as before, if not more. He was her little brother who loved to irritated her just to see how loud she'd scream and who was prepared to duel a 6th year just for embarrassing her. He was the ever-present thorn in her side, the biggest and sharpest, the little brother she loved.

She'd never claimed to hate him, she'd never even done as her father asked and tried to beat him in every test. They'd sort of been thrown together, they were both in Ravenclaw when expected elsewhere, both children of the famous or infamous. So they'd often ended up sitting together in class. And then he'd struck up an odd relationship with her cousin Albus, one she just couldn't understand but which meant she spent even more time around him, waiting for Albus and him to finish their banter, something which seemed to take up a lot of their time. Next he'd commandeered James with a mutual love of quidditch and after James it was Lily, though Rose had no idea what they talked about when they huddled together on the lawn or in a corner of the library. Before she knew it he had climbed straight into her life, he was always there, irritating and cocky. He could read her so easily got her respond just the way he wanted. And it wasn't till then she decided he was a thorn in her side and she didn't like him. Not one bit.

She can remember the day she told him. Lying on the lawn out by the lake one hot June afternoon. She was dripping wet because he'd pushed her in. She'd clambered out angrily and sat right on top of him as he lay sprawled out on the tree.

"Merlin! You're soaking wet!"

"and who's fault is that?"

"Your's," he replied promptly, "If you hadn't complained so much about the heat I wouldn't have had to take such drastic measures to shut you up."

She lay down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder as his arm snaked around her waist.

"You're _the_ thorn." She said, turning to look up into his eyes. A thin eyebrow raised, "the what?"

"The thorn. The one whose the most irritating and annoying. The one I get mad at the most. The one I yell and scream and through the most horrendous tantrums at." He laughed, "The Thorn and the Rose. Sounds like the title of one of those romance novels."

"I love my thorns you know." She told him, "I have quite a few. But you're still _the_ thorn." The last part came out muffled, for his lips had already come down on hers and as always she responded just the way he wanted.


End file.
